The young curmudgeon that you might just grow to love. Maybe.

A Less Than ‘Sunday Morning’ Phone Call

I am not often at a loss for words. I tend to talk a lot and if you get my going I will share strong opinions that you may not agree with. Sometimes when you disagree with me, I will not easily accept your disagreement. I’m not proud of that fact, but it is true.

A phone call this morning got me thinking about how selfish we can all be.

Right now the KDUZ/KARP/KGLB studios are a little torn up. An upgrade to better equipment is resulting in us using a setup that is less than top of the line for a while. On Sunday mornings we play local church services via an antenna and that’s where our story begins.

Last week, the first church service was late due to our switch to a temporary studio. The right wire wasn’t wired right and it was our fault. During this time a handful of people call to state the obvious that the church service wasn’t on which is annoying, but that’s going to happen.

This week the same church service was delayed. This time it was not due to us at the radio station, but the church. The church forgot to push the button that would broadcast their service. The same phone calls come in again which is to be expected. The listeners of AM radio are apparently always four numbers into the phone number waiting for something to go wrong, because it’s an almost instantaneous happening.

The second call I received was beautiful, the first call I received was nothing short of downright rude and bitchy. The following is the transcript of what I recall from the first call:

Me: KDUZ/KARP/KGLB, this is Collin.

Caller: Faith Lutheran Church isn’t on. (This was said with a very condescending voice)

Me: We know. We’re having some technical difficulties; we’re working on it right now. They’ll be on the air as soon as possible.

Caller: Maybe you guys need a better engineer.

Here is where I went speechless for a moment, because really who expects to be attacked by someone calling about the delay of a church service.

Me: Thanks for your opinion. Have a good day.

I hung up the phone.

I’m learning through our remodeling process that there is a whole lot of wires involved in making a radio station go. It’s a lot more complicated than hooking up a computer to a fancy board and having advertisements ready to go. It’s an immensely complex operation.

My point is that I don’t think bitchy caller would know how to hook anything up, possibly not even able to turn on the microphone. Maybe she could surprise me and have years and years of training, but the chances are slim to none.

It’s one thing in this world to be critical of professional athletes who get paid millions of dollars to play a sport, but to criticize someone that you wouldn’t know if they knocked you over in Taco Bell is a little ridiculous.

The world has checks and balances that criticize everyone: bosses, supervisors, voters, ratings, etc. If someone is failing, the message will be heard sooner than later. It doesn’t require Miss Joe Blow to say it.

If you are that caller, I hope you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I hope that you do not blame people who aren’t even to blame for other things in your life as well. If you do, the engineering in your brain and soul could really use an overhaul. You could use the radio station’s engineer. He’s pretty good.

To the second caller who called to ask where it was because ‘the church service is my favorite thing to listen to’, thank you for listening. You are the kind of person I want in this world and listening to the radio.

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